


Commencement

by De_Nugis



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Ausonius, Future Fic, M/M, latin poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-29 21:48:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6395161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/De_Nugis/pseuds/De_Nugis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kevin deals with dead languages and live possibilities.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Commencement

**Author's Note:**

  * For [verucasalt123](https://archiveofourown.org/users/verucasalt123/gifts).



> 1\. Written for spnspringfling 2016 for the prompt "losing virginity."
> 
> 2\. The Nuptial Cento of Ausonius is a real thing. Centos are poems made of lines and half-lines of another poem recombined into a narrative. Ausonius took Vergil as his base-text and put some lines to X-rated use.
> 
> 3\. content note: mentions of Sam/Ruby and blood-drinking.

“Have you done this before? With a guy?” 

Sam sounds detached, almost academic, like he’s assessing which level of the sex curriculum Kevin places into. It’s weird, after the noises he was making a moment ago, the groan when his hand had slipped under Kevin’s waistband and touched the hot tip of Kevin’s dick.

“Uh,” says Kevin. 

He’s starting to regret the Ausonius sexting thing. 

It had been an impulse. An understandable one — who else is Kevin going to text when it’s three AM and his Latin reading turns out to be this guy repurposing chopped up lines from Vergil into penis references? — but definitely not something whose implications Kevin had thought through. 

Not that Kevin’s thoughts about Sam have been totally penis-free the last couple of years. But that aspect has always been safely unattainable when Sam’s actually been around, the five or six times he’s checked in on Kevin’s post-mortem undergraduate career. Strictly fantasy. 

That’s over. Certainly the undergraduate career is — Kevin’s diploma, _summa cum laude_ , is on the desk, under his rented gown and Sam’s shirts. And when Kevin had met up with Sam for a drink after dropping Mom at her hotel Sam had _looked_ at him. Covertly, at first, quick glances, but after Kevin had had a beer and Sam had had two whiskies, Sam had leaned back and _stared_ , open and deliberate. Most of the light was coming from the bar’s TV and Exit signs. It had gleamed in shifting blues and greens and blood-reds in Sam’s eyes and on the sweaty hollow of his throat. Then Sam had reached a hand, one of his huge hands, hairs glinting on the broad, flat wrist, and brushed his fingers across the corner of Kevin’s mouth.

Kevin could have said it had been a long day (it has; they had to line up at 6:45). He could have said he was meeting Mom for breakfast tomorrow at seven (also true). He could have thanked Sam for coming to commencement and gotten Sam’s congratulations and Dean’s second-hand good wishes and maybe hello from the Winchester classic car or the Winchester angel or something. He might have seen Sam in a few months, if Sam still feels the need to look in on him now. But Kevin’s pretty sure Sam wouldn’t have given him that look again, not if Kevin had deflected it. An exchange of potentially dirty lines from Vergil isn’t a commitment. It’s just a step on a slippery slope.

He’d said, “My place is, uh, I live just up the street.” Which Sam knows, of course. He’d hung out there drinking Kevin’s coffee and leafing through Kevin’s books in November while Kevin translated a Hittite spell for him.

Sam had paid the tab and they’d walked back in silence. Once or twice Sam’s hand had grazed Kevin’s ass. 

Now Sam’s shirts are off and so is Kevin’s and Sam’s dick isn’t something Kevin fantasizes about, it’s not, like, a repurposed Vergil text joke, it’s _there_ , a long, thick line under Sam’s jeans. Sam’s condescending question translates to _this is it_. Sex. Compared to death, it can’t be that big a deal. So why does it feel like one of those dreams where it’s the final in the course you forgot you were taking?

“What’s this one?” he asks. Stalling. It gives him an excuse to put his hand back on Sam’s chest, where the blue-inked creature curves from the notch of his collarbone to curl its scaly tail around his nipple. Kevin can decipher most of the symbols that cluster around Sam’s chest and shoulders, twining across his ribs and cascading down the knobs of his spine. They all say KEEP OUT. Kevin’s not sure how to feel about that in the current context. He’s touched most of them. The skin had stayed solid, but pliable.

He has his own anti-possession tattoo, of course, just the one. Sam had worked carefully around it when he’d kissed his way across Kevin’s chest and down his arms, a few hot, confused minutes ago, hands pressing Kevin to the wall, hard scrape of teeth everywhere but there. Kevin’s not sure how he feels about that, either, that avoidance.

“It’s a pangolin,” says Sam.

“Is that some kind of mythical creature?”

“It’s a real animal. Zoe, the woman who did the tats for me, she’s not a hunter but her girlfriend is. She recognized some of the sigils. She knew they were, like, armor. So she showed me this. She thought I might like it. She’s into zoological motifs. Pangolins are armored animals.”

“What does it do?”

“Nothing. It’s just, like, a personal symbol. Passive-aggressive nature trivia. I don’t know. It was after Gadreel, that whole thing. Zoe said I single-handedly financed their Paris vacation that year. I guess I went overboard.”

“You think?” says Kevin. Not that the riot of ink doesn’t look good. 

Sam laughs. That makes things a little easier. But his question is still hanging over Kevin’s head, waiting for an answer.

Sam just kinda sorta told him something. Kevin’s supposed to reciprocate. They’re half-naked, moving towards all the way naked. Kevin should be talking. That’s how this works, right? It feels impossible, though, like breaking through the static when he was a ghost. 

He leans forward instead and kisses Sam again. That feels impossible, too, the taste of whisky in Sam’s mouth, the feel of Sam’s dick under Kevin’s thigh, Kevin half in Sam’s lap, straddling him, the excruciating pressure of his own erection against his zipper. But this feels like the kind of impossible that will go on happening without Kevin’s interference. Can’t the rest just, like, do itself, and Kevin can decide on his involvement afterwards?

“Kevin?” says Sam. 

“I didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition or something,” says Kevin.

Sam pulls back. The dark, intent look is still there, but now his forehead is worried. It makes Kevin less sure and more angry. He wishes Sam would go back to pressing him against the wall and biting him. He wishes he had the nerve to just forge ahead with things himself. But Sam is all mass and muscle and armored animal. He doesn’t look ravishable.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” says Sam. “I just wanted to be sure you were sure, that you wanted to go ahead, that I’d be doing stuff you liked.”

“I’m the twenty-five-year-old virgin, OK?” Depending on how you count dead time. “I haven’t done this with anyone. I could summon a fucking unicorn. Is that some kind of a problem for you?” 

No way is Kevin telling Sam about that first post-resurrection year, when he’d wake up from a sex dream and not be hard, when he’d be hard and there’d be nothing in his head to go with it. When he’d been a ghost haunting his own body. When sometimes he’d wondered, if he did try sex with someone, if he’d spill out into the world of contact all random and violent, like a poltergeist. Or if he’d just not be able to get it up and be humiliated.

Sam’s got that expression he has when he makes inspirational speeches. Kevin hates that expression. 

“It’s not a problem for me,” says Sam. “Not if it isn’t for you. Twenty-five’s not exactly ancient, anyway. We can take it slow. It, sex can be weird, at first, but we’ll make it good. We’ll figure out what you like.” He starts to undo Kevin’s belt buckle. “This OK?” he asks, fingers on Kevin’s waistband. 

Of course Sam is saying all the right things. The right things are a jangle of wrongness, making Kevin self-conscious, making him panic. Sam’s goddamn careful speeches are the kind of disconnect he falls through. He wants to smash something, swing his fist, do something ugly, now, while it’s under control.

“Intro to Sex with Professor Winchester?” he says. “Is that what you’re offering this term? No fucking thanks.” 

That does it, a crack of hurt in Sam’s face, a nice, narrow space to come and go through. Kevin touches Sam’s chest again. His nails are always ragged. He digs in and Sam gasps, dick moving under Kevin’s thigh. Kevin drags his thumbnail across the pangolin, hard, drawing a thin line beaded with blood. Sam grabs his wrist and presses the heel of Kevin’s hand against the scratch. 

“Stop that,” he says. His other hand is on Kevin’s ass, holding him down.

“I don’t think so,” says Kevin, half-elated, half-terrified. “Why don’t we talk about what _you_ like. Why don’t we find out about that.”

“All right,” says Sam. He sounds both angry and impossibly, implacably reasonable. His hands keep their grip. “All right. I like anal, with guys. I like to fuck people. I like getting fucked, too. The quicker and harder the better. I like it rough, against walls. I like being tied up, sometimes. I like to go down on girls. I give rim-jobs, too, don’t get jealous. I like pain. Receiving, mostly. I liked the blood. You know about the blood, don’t you? Of course you do, it’s fucking lore, it’s probably on a tablet somewhere. Ruby, the demon, I’d fuck her and I’d drink from her. She got off on it, too. I’d be in her and she’d make a cut on her wrist, and I’d, I’d have my hand on her stomach, I could feel her muscles shiver when I swallowed. I like a lot of stuff. Is that a fucking problem for you?”

Sam’s chest is heaving under Kevin’s hand, where the small, sticky smear of blood glues them together. He’s staring at Kevin again. This time it’s not speculation or invitation, it’s a fuck, rough, up against a wall. Kevin is harder than he’s ever been in his life. He wants to get the hell out of here. He wants to stay right where he is and ride Sam’s anger to wherever it leads them. He wants to take back the last two minutes.

“Was that supposed to scare me off, or turn me on?” he says. His voice quavers. 

Sam takes a shuddering breath and lets go of Kevin, pushing him off, but gently. Kevin scrambles over a few humiliated inches and waits. Sam is running his hands through his hair.

“Both. Neither. Fuck. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Look, we are absolutely, totally not doing anything you’re not up for. And it’s not like I hate, like, blowjobs or, or milkshakes, or sex under the stars. But I might not be what you want, the first time. Any time. Sex can be freaky. I can be freaky. The combination might be freaky. You want me to just go? You did great, graduating. _Summa cum_ fucking _laude_. You did great. There’s absolutely nothing you have to do to top off your day here.”

A warmth starts in Kevin’s belly that has nothing to do with the hard, uncomfortable heat of Sam talking about fucking and blood and walls and whatever twisted connection his brain makes between sex and milkshakes. 

“You think I did great?” he says. 

“I think you did great,” Sam says. “That prize for your senior thesis. All those languages. Sanskrit, Hittite.” He looks sideways at Kevin’s face, hesitantly, like he’s not sure what he’s going to see, like he’s taking a risk. “Latin. Your Ausonius work was pretty awesome.” He lifts a hand like he’s going to touch Kevin again, lets it drop.

Sam is picking something out of the ugly tangle they just made, a thread, and he’s trying to hand it to Kevin. The thread for a maze, the way out. Or maybe it’s the way in. Kevin feels the tug of potential, the one that seems like a good idea when it’s 3 AM and you’re sleep-deprived and Ausonius-sexting. Somehow the whole dangerous, disastrous night has circled back to that point of possibility.

“You know what else Ausonius wrote?” Kevin asks. “Besides the Vergil porno thing?”

“What?” says Sam.

“A poem about a river. The _Mosella_. I wrote a paper on it. It’s famous for its description of a dying fish. Stylistically famous, that is. Stylistically famous moribund fish poetry. If that’s your thing.”

Sam’s smile is startling, dizzying. He grabs at Kevin’s face, but when he kisses him this time it’s barely a brush, the lightest possible pleasure. Then his breath is tickling Kevin’s ear.

“I think your kinky dying fish Ausonius work is fucking magnificent,” he says.

Kevin looks down at Sam’s lap. Yes, it’s a hard-on. Yes, it’s someone else’s hard-on, unnervingly close. And it’s Sam. The guy who palms him off with platitudes, the guy whose body killed him, back before he locked the stable door with all those tattoos. The guy Kevin texted because it was 3 AM and he was never going to be able to read Aeneas producing the mystic golden bough in the underworld again after what Ausonius did to _ramum, qui veste latebat_ *. Why should Sam enjoy classical literature dick-free if Kevin can’t?

Proximity doesn’t feel impossible, now. It doesn’t feel like a gap. It feels like a connection. Kevin wants to go on. He wants what’s next. He wants to explore. He wants to grasp the fucking golden bough. And, yes, he means that in the most innuendous way possible. He’s goddamn Ausonius.

He meets Sam’s eyes, daring. 

“So,” he says, “is that a _ramus_ lurking in your _veste_ , or are you just happy to see me?”

__________________

*the branch/stick, hidden in his garment.


End file.
